Tennessee's campaign to boost college success has made it a national education leader, according to a new report from Ivy League researchers, but the researchers warned that several problems stood in the way of unqualified success.

The report released Tuesday by the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education tracked the progress made by Republican and Democratic governors who collaborated with college and business leaders to boost college enrollment and graduation over the last several years. Lead author Joni E. Finney said that collaboration, combined with the rapid-fire launch of support programs like the Tennessee Promise scholarship under Gov. Bill Haslam, has established a model other states should follow.

"Tennessee is a big experiment, and I think everybody in the country is watching," Finney said, noting the constellation of forces that had aligned behind a singular goal.

But Finney said the state's continued progress would depend on teamwork that persists after Haslam leaves office in 2018.

"The next race for governor will be very important in Tennessee," Finney said. "The political leadership, you can't understate the importance of having that in place for this agenda to be sustained and to move forward.... It's amazing how much can be undone by a governor who doesn't care or is somehow hostile to higher education."